Demonchild
by Naladot
Summary: When Azula grew up, she grew up refined. Oneshot. Some AzulaZhou.


Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender

A/N: The C.S. Lewis quote inspired this, but I'm not sure it directly relates the the story.

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**Demonchild**

_"We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment."--C.S. Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters_

When Azula grew up, she grew up refined. Refined meant that when she insulted, she did so quietly and subtly; when she taunted, she did so without words; when she bullied, she didn't use force but warped the person until their will matched her own. She was cultured to disguise her pride and cruelty until she appeared as clever and beautiful. Her selfishness wasn't disguised, nor her ambitions, but they were accepted, because of course, a princess could do no wrong.

But when she was little, a little princess, Azula was a demon.

Years ago, when her mother hadn't left and her dad wasn't the Fire Lord but second-in-line, her brother was given a fire-lizard for his birthday. The thing had scaly wings and was always gnawing at its leash, trying to break free. Zuko loved it and so Azula wanted to take it from him, because life was always funnier when Zuko was unhappy.

She never stopped to think beyond her own need for entertainment, and nothing held her attention for long.

It was easy to distract Zuko--_The cook just baked new sugar rolls, the kind with the lemon and berries inside. You know they're best when they're warm._

And there was his fire-lizard, chewing at the leash (which Zuko had sloppily tied to a tree) and flapping its wings hard, about a foot off the ground, desperate to break free. Azula skipped over to it and loosened the leash, letting it fly in front of her. Then she ran, her feet flying down the halls of the palace and the nasty creature soaring behind her, until she reached her bedchamber. She dashed through the room and out to her private courtyard, where Zuko wasn't allowed, not ever, and tied the fire-lizard back down again. Her knots were impeccable and impossible to escape from. The fire-lizard resigned itself to captivity again, and Azula whistled her way back through the palace hallways.

Zuko was standing in the other courtyard, half-eaten sugar roll on the ground as his eyes darted up to the sky, into the corners, back to the ground. His expression was one of mingled shock, accusation, and sadness when he saw Azula. "Did you see what happened to my lizard?"

"Oh," Azula shrugged, "it flew away."

"You didn't try to stop it?"

"You should have tied the leash better." the implication in her words was obvious, as it always was, that Zuko couldn't do anything right, not like his little sister, and he would never ever catch up.

In their family, Azula knew even then, the second-born child was always better; the first-born was always silly and stupid.

It was just after their mother had committed treason and their father was finally crowned the Fire Lord that Azula began to be a little refined, began to grow up just a little. To everyone else this was charming, but Zuko knew that all it meant was she would never ever get caught.

Their father had a banquet one night for all the military officials, and it rained. It kept raining and raining, and the banquet kept going. Zuko got bored quickly, but Azula didn't. She was dwarfed by the men to her right and left, the little princess who had more to say about battle than the general down the table.

Captain Zhou was on Azula's right. Zuko didn't like him, didn't like his arrogant mannerisms or the vague sense that everything the captain said was a way to suck up to Zuko's dad or the hungry, disgusting, perverse look in the captain's eyes whenever Azula talked. There were some lines that shouldn't be flirted with, and Azula was one of those lines.

Zuko was still young enough to care about his sister, then.

Ten and a half year old Azula drew herself to her full height and looked the huge men in the eyes. "The impenetrable city? You all disgust me," she smiled, "I'll take it down myself."

And they laughed like adults do when children say something silly, but there was no doubt behind their eyes.

Sitting across from her, Zuko drew himself up to his full height and looked at his uncle on his right. Iroh was sipping his tea thoughtfully, his eyes on Azula just like everyone else.

"_I'll _take down the Avatar!" he announced, watching Azula in contest. Their section of the long table suddenly grew quiet. Zuko felt a sinking feeling of his stomach as all the men in all the red armor looked at him, slightly amused.

"It seems," Zhou said, leaning over to Azula, "that your brother would like to defeat a myth. Not very sensible, is he?"

The princess, smirking with eyes just as cold as the captain's next to her, replied, "No, he's never been."

The next morning when it was still raining but all the men were sleeping off the wine, Azula and Zuko were relegated to one of the far rooms bordered with windows. It was gray, everything was gray, and all the glass was slick with rain. Zuko sat in one of the window seats and tried to ignore his sister by watching the countryside get drenched.

"Stupid," she sang, smiling broadly and suddenly the almost-woman from the banquet was gone, "stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, Zuzu!" She didn't stop singing and the rain didn't stop pouring.

One day the prince was banished and the Dragon of the West went with him and Azula was eleven years old and being sent away, too. But she was ready.

Mai and Ty Lee joined her in the palace. Between the three of them were twenty-eight trunks; Ty Lee had the most and Mai had the least. All of Ty Lee's sisters were in the palace, too, but Azula didn't like _them_ and Ty Lee was ecstatic. She showed off to Mai and Azula one of the new tricks she was learning, the chi manipulation that could stop bending.

"Watch this!" she exclaimed, pinching Azula hard in the arm.

Azula felt it, inside of her, as something jolted and her arm felt weak. She tried, frantically, to call fire to her fingertips but none came and the energy wouldn't move and Azula was almost, almost scared.

She bit her lip in anger--how could Ty Lee be so stupid?--but she was older now and her anger less raw, hidden now under layers of propriety and restraint. The princess left the room, quietly, and asked Ty Lee's older sister to come spend the night in her private quarters with the other two.

Every time Azula complimented the girl's sister Ty Lee's face contorted in jealousy more and every time Azula ignored Ty Lee she felt the satisfying flame of revenge.

When the princess got older, she didn't forget about getting back at people, she just learned how to wait for the best opportunity. Azula always got her way, as a princess should.

She came back from the Fire Nation Academy for Girls fourteen, strikingly beautiful, and perfectly refined. The Fire Lord saw it and said he loved his daughter. Azula never questioned it because in their family, this was how fathers loved--distantly and without any real love, admiring qualities and grooming an heir to carry on their legacy.

Everyone in the palace idolized this woman walking the passageways. They said they remembered her, but really they only almost did. Forgotten were the days when this same princess singed the laundry, demanded to have a new meal cooked over and over because none satisfied her, burned down the western gazebo because she thought it ugly, trained herself into exhaustion to please her father. Because _this_ girl, cold and refined, would never do any of that.

She was sitting idly in her chamber one day, looking out the window, when a maid walked in. This maid was old and had cleaned the princess's laundry since before her mother disappeared and her brother was banished and the princess herself had gone away as a little girl and come back a firebending master. And, like everyone else in the palace, this maid had let the nagging memories go in favor of thoughts of this new princess. Even though this princess wasn't really likable, not really.

"Oh, dear." she said softly as she arranged the princess's clothes in one of the huge embellished wardrobes. The maid gave a glance behind her. It was irrational, of course, but she had an image of a little girl with fire in her eyes. Azula was still looking out the window, running a finger through a strand of her silky hair. The maid gave a sigh, turning back to the stained garment. She finished quickly and left the room.

A week later the maid found herself jobless and homeless with only the curt explanation _The princess won't have incompetent staff._

A month later the princess was waiting, quietly, for Captain Zhou. For some reason the man requested an audience with her, and Azula was amused enough to grant it. He said he had some news he wanted to tell her, but Azula already knew the Avatar was alive and she was prepared to dismiss the man if he had the audacity to try to start a conversation with _that_.

But no, it wasn't that, it was the things her father had never bothered to tell her about this resurrection of the world's supposed savior. Captain Zhou, eyes gleaming, told her of how her brother's pathetic ship was even more pathetic when it docked and how her brother had tried to hide all that had happened, but Zhou had easily found out that the destruction was caused by the Avatar himself. Zuko had never been a very good liar, not like Azula.

She smiled knowingly when Zhou laughed about the Agni Kai because Zhou wasn't a very good liar, either, and it was obvious Zuko had won. As it should be, really, because if nothing else Zuko _was_ a prince and Zhou was nothing.

But Fire Lord Ozai liked Zhou, and Azula didn't really dislike him. He was as ambitious as the princess and unable to hide it. Their camaraderie wasn't exactly sincere and would crumple as soon as one tried to double-cross the other, but for the time he was staying in the Fire Nation (not very long) Azula found their relationship amusing. It was easy to wind the captain around her little finger; she was young and beautiful and the one thing that after no amount of work would he be able to have.

She said goodbye with an affectionless kiss and a laughed _perhaps we'll be engaged when you return_.

He never did and Azula had never felt anything in the first place.

An entire Fire Nation fleet had been destroyed by one little hundred year old boy when her father called her to his throne room. She knew where it was heading and she was ready, ready to destroy and gain everything for herself.

When Azula was young, her mother and brother had called her a demon and Azula had laughed.

_ Iroh is a traitor. . ._

Now Azula was older, too refined to laugh, but inside she still laughed because in the end she knew she would be the best.

_And your brother Zuko is a failure. . ._

Too old to believe in demons, too numb to believe in right and wrong, Azula didn't even realize her heart was black.

_ I have a task for you._


End file.
